capt. Bringdown Isles

[Afton Bar Pickles]

In a 7,600-word account, covering nearly four pages of the Sunday edition of The New York Times, reporter David Barstow has described how the Pentagon has used broadcast and cable-TV "military experts" to promote its war policies. "Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air," Barstow alleged in the Times article. A few of the analysts have expressed regret. Robert Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and for Fox News military analyst told the Times that he and fellow military officers had been used as puppets. "It was them saying, 'We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you," he said. Former NBC military analyst Kenneth Allard said that he began to see discrepancies between what he and fellow analysts were being told in briefings and what subsequent information later revealed. "I felt we'd been hosed," Allard told the Times.In his article, Barstow comments that the Pentagon sought to use the military analysts as "a kind of media Trojan horse," and that email messages obtained by the newspaper referred to them by such terms as "surrogates" and "message-force multipliers." Moreover, he maintains, the TV outlets that featured the analysts failed to disclose that many of them were on the payrolls of defense contractors. For example, Ret. Army General James Marks, while working as an analyst for CNN from 2004-2007, also worked at McNeil Technologies where he solicited billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts. CBS military analyst Jeffrey McCausland said in the article that the penalty for criticizing the military's policies in Iraq was losing "all access." (McCausland, the article pointed out, works at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, a lobbying firm for several military contractors.) Former Fox News analyst William V. Cowan, a retired Marine colonel, said that when he told Bill O'Reilly in August 2005 that the U.S. was "not on a good glide path right now" in Iraq, he was "precipitously fired from the analysts group." The Pentagon, he said, "simply didn't like the fact that I wasn't carrying their water." In the article, Barstow discloses that the Times itself published nine Op-Ed articles by military analysts recruited by the Pentagon.

[matthew]

POLITICS-US:  Supreme Court Gives Republicans a Boost
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Apr 28 (IPS) - In a decision with major implications for the November national elections, the U.S. Supreme Court Monday upheld a controversial state law that Democrats and a number of national civil rights groups believe could undermine the right of tens of thousands of poor and minority voters to cast ballots.

Six of the court's nine justices ruled that Indiana's voter-identification law, which requires all voters to produce a government-issued photo identification at their polling places, did not violate the Constitution, as Democrats and a number of national civil rights organisations had argued.

Writing for the majority, Justine John Paul Stevens asserted that the state had a "valid interest" in preventing voter fraud and that, "on the basis of the record that has been made in this litigation, we cannot conclude that the statute imposes 'excessively burdensome requirements' on any class of voters."

Noting that the law was passed by the Republican-dominated legislature and signed by the state's Republican governor, Stevens noted that "simply because partisan interests may have provided one motivation for the votes of individual legislators" did not invalidate other justifications for the law.

But three of the justices said they disagreed. "Indiana's 'Voter ID law' threatens to impose a nontrivial burden on the voting right of tens of thousands of the state's citizens, and a significant percentage of those individuals are likely to be deterred from voting," wrote Justice David Souter, who also noted that the state had failed to offer evidence that voter fraud of the kind the law was purportedly designed to address was a significant problem.

Democrats also decried the majority's conclusion. "The court's decision today places obstacles to the fundamental rights of American citizens -- especially the poor, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities -- to participate in the electoral process," said the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.

Democrats are particularly concerned because unprecedented numbers of voters -- particularly younger voters who historically have been least likely to take part in elections -- are turning out for the party's primary elections this year, most of them driven by the excitement generated by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's campaign and the certainty that they will be able to vote for the first African American or the first woman to be the presidential candidate of one of the two major U.S. parties. The party is hoping that enthusiasm will produce a record turnout -- which tends to favour Democrats -- in November.

Monday's decision marks the judicial culmination, at least for now, of a raging controversy between Republicans, who have claimed that vote fraud is a significant problem in many parts of the U.S., and Democrats, who argue that Republicans are using voter identification laws to suppress the turnout by voters -- particularly the poor, racial minorities, and the elderly -- who are more likely to vote Democratic.

In 2005, Indiana's then-Republican-dominated state legislature approved the nation's most restrictive voter-identification law that also created the basis for a similar, but slightly less restrictive, Georgia law that was passed by its legislature the following year.

The Indiana law requires voters to present government-issued photo identification, normally a driver's license or a passport, to election monitors when they show up at their polling place. Several organisations, including the Indiana Democratic Party, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), immediately challenged the law, arguing that it imposed undue burdens on eligible voters who lacked the required identification.

"What does the court's decision say about the direction this country is headed on voting rights?" said Maude Hurd, the president of ACORN, a national anti-poverty group that has helped 1.8 million people register to vote. "It seems we are ready to turn back the clock on gains made in civil rights to ensure all Americans have a voice in the electorate and go back to rules that make it easier for one group to vote than it is for another."

A series of studies have found that between 10 and 13 percent of eligible voters don't own the kinds of identification currently required by Indiana, according to Justin Levitt, a counsel at the Brennan Centre for justice at New York University's School of Law, which filed a "friend of the court" brief in the Indiana case.

One 2007 Indiana study found that 13.3 percent of registered voters there lack the required ID, including more than 18 percent of registered black voters and more than 20 percent of voters aged 18 to 34.

"There are millions of eligible voters who don't have the ID these laws require -- senior citizens who don't drive, students, the disabled, low-income people, all of whom have the right to vote," said Kathryn Kolbert, president of People for the American Way Foundation (PAWF), a liberal civil rights groups, which also filed a supporting brief in the case. "These laws are intended to suppress voter turnout."

While Republicans insist that such laws are intended only to prevent voter fraud, they have been hard put to provide evidence that in-person voting -- as opposed to absentee voting where some fraud has taken place -- has been a problem in recent years.

Among Republicans, noted the former political director for the Texas Republican Party, Royal Masset, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle last year, it is an "article of religious faith that voter fraud is causing us to lose elections." He told the newspaper that he personally didn't agree with that assessment but added that requiring photo identification could reduce legitimate Democratic voting enough to effectively add three percent to the Republican vote.

Indiana is one of more than 20 states that passed restrictive voter identification laws, although Indiana, Georgia, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Florida, are by far the most restrictive. In some states, for example, photo identification could be satisfied by student cards, credit cards, or employee-issued identification; in other states, utility bills or rental receipts may be sufficient.

Levitt said he did not expect other states to pass Indiana-like legislation before the November elections, but Monday's decision "makes it likely that the identification laws in Indiana, Georgia, and Florida will be in effect in November and will keep otherwise eligible voters -- well into the thousands and maybe tens of thousands -- from voting."

Levitt and the ACLU noted that three of the justices, including Stevens, who voted to uphold the law in the face of a direct constitutional challenge, left open the possibility they could change their minds in a case brought by an eligible voter who was actually prevented from voting because of its identification requirements.

"We are very disappointed with today's decision," said ACLU legal director Steven Shapiro, "but it leaves the door open to future challenges in Indiana and elsewhere by registered voters who are denied their right to vote based on onerous and unconstitutional voter ID laws."

Evidence of dozens of such denials has been collected in recent elections in both Indiana and Georgia, although it is impossible to know how many voters without the required identification decided to stay home rather than try to cast their ballots, according to Levitt.

(END/2008)


************************************************************************


I have yet to see a single example of the supposed voting fraud that this is -supposedly- intended to curtail.

[bebopbalogna]

probably best to keep this in here

[Big Baby Jesus]

Teacher fired for refusing to sign loyalty oath
Cal State system ousts another instructor who objects on religious grounds to a pledge adopted by California in 1952 to root out communists.
By Richard C. Paddock
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

When Wendy Gonaver was offered a job teaching American studies at Cal State Fullerton this academic year, she was pleased to be headed back to the classroom to talk about one of her favorite themes: protecting constitutional freedoms.

But the day before class was scheduled to begin, her appointment as a lecturer abruptly ended over just the kind of issue that might have figured in her course. She lost the job because she did not sign a loyalty oath swearing to "defend" the U.S. and California constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

The loyalty oath was added to the state Constitution by voters in 1952 to root out communists in public jobs. Now, 16 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, its main effect is to weed out religious believers, particularly Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses.

As a Quaker from Pennsylvania and a lifelong pacifist, Gonaver objected to the California oath as an infringement of her rights of free speech and religious freedom. She offered to sign the pledge if she could attach a brief statement expressing her views, a practice allowed by other state institutions. But Cal State Fullerton rejected her statement and insisted that she sign the oath if she wanted the job.

"I wanted it on record that I am a pacifist," said Gonaver, 38. "I was really upset. I didn't expect to be fired. I was so shocked that I had to do this."

California State University officials say they were simply following the law and did not discriminate against Gonaver because all employees are required to sign the oath. Clara Potes-Fellow, a Cal State spokeswoman, said the university does not permit employees to submit personal statements with the oath.

"The position of the university is that her entire added material was against the law," Potes-Fellow said.

In February, another Cal State instructor, Quaker math teacher Marianne Kearney-Brown, was fired because she inserted the word "nonviolently" when she signed the oath. She was quickly rehired after her case attracted media attention.

It is hard to know how many would-be workers decline to sign the pledge over religious or political issues. Some object because they interpret the pledge as a commitment to take up arms. Others have trouble swearing an oath to something other than their God.

Public agencies do not appear to keep a record of people denied employment over the oath. Union grievances and lawsuits are rare.

Some agencies take the oath more seriously than others. Certain school districts and community colleges have been known to let employees change the wording of the oath when they sign or to ignore the requirement altogether. Others, including the University of California, advise employees on how they can register their objections yet still sign the pledge.

All state, city, county, public school, community college and public university employees -- about 2.3 million people -- are covered by the law, although noncitizens are not required to sign.

UC Berkeley was the first to impose a tough anti-communist loyalty oath in 1949 and fired 31 professors who refused to sign.

After a version of the oath was added to the state Constitution, courts eventually struck down its harshest elements but let stand the requirement of defending the constitutions. In one court test, personal statements accompanying the oath were deemed constitutional as long as they did not nullify the meaning of the oath.

Now, the University of California advises new employees who balk at signing the pledge that they can submit an addendum, as long as it does not negate the oath.

UC even provides sample declarations, such as: "This is not a promise to take up arms in contravention of my religious beliefs," or "I owe allegiance to Jehovah."

The California State University system takes a firmer approach.

Kearney-Brown, the math instructor fired by Cal State East Bay, said she added the word "nonviolently" just as she had when taking previous jobs as a high school teacher. The university, however, told her she could not alter the pledge.

After her case attracted media attention and help from the United Auto Workers, which represents some Cal State employees, the university reversed course. The office of Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown drafted a statement declaring that the oath does not commit employees to bear arms in the country's defense. Cal State agreed to let Kearney-Brown attach it to her oath and she was reinstated.

Kearney-Brown said she believed she was defending the Constitution by objecting to the oath and argued that signing a pledge should not be reduced to a meaningless formality.

"The way it's laid out, a noncitizen member of Al Qaeda could work for the university, but not a citizen Quaker," she said.

The 23-campus Cal State system has fired instructors over the oath at least twice before.

In 2001, Cal StateDominguez Hills dismissed geography lecturer Alejandro Alonso after he refused to sign. He said at the time that he identified with the Jehovah's Witnesses and that swearing an oath to anyone but God violated his religious beliefs.

When his request for a religious exemption was denied, he proposed signing the oath and attaching a personal statement. That also was denied. Alonso, who went on to teach at USC, has become an expert on Los Angeles gangs and runs the website www.streetgangs.com.

In 1995, Methodist minister Bud Tillinghast was teaching a course on comparative religion at Humboldt State University, when he was pulled out of class by campus police and fired because he had not signed the oath.

Tillinghast said he believed that swearing an oath to the state helped establish the government as a religion.

"I was teaching world religions and I ran up against a state religion," the retired minister recalled. "My concern was that this was breaking down the separation of church and state and making the state a religion you swear allegiance to."

He filed suit against Cal State for reinstatement arguing that the oath violated the 1993 federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. But after a court found that law unconstitutional, his suit was thrown out.

In all, Tillinghast said, he went up against the loyalty oath three times. Before being fired by Humboldt, he taught a religion class at a community college for nearly a decade. For that job, the school allowed him to sign an alternate oath.

Last year, he was named to the Humbolt County Human Rights Commission. A potential problem was averted when officials decided he didn't need to sign the oath.

Efforts to remove the oath from the state Constitution have been unsuccessful, although the matter came under scrutiny in 1998 when a congressional subcommittee held a hearing on religious freedom.

Among those who testified was Zari Wigfall, a Jehovah's Witness who said she twice lost jobs at Sacramento City College in 1994 because of the oath, first as a student tour guide and later as a theater house manager for a children's play.

"Citizens are entitled to certain rights, and also minorities, including religious minorities, are given certain guarantees," she told the committee. "And I just didn't think that . . . because of my religious beliefs I would have two jobs taken away from me."

She is now a dancer, choreographer and teacher in Southern California.

For Gonaver, the oath came up unexpectedly.

She was offered the job at Fullerton teaching two classes last fall, Introduction to American Studies and Introduction to Intercultural Women's Studies. She received two appointment letters and signed a contract. When she attended an orientation session for new faculty, she heard of the oath for the first time.

After researching the issue and learning that UC allowed its employees to provide personal statements, she submitted her own six-sentence declaration to Fullerton.

In her statement, she wrote that the oath violates the 1st Amendment and discriminates against religious pacifists, such as Quakers and Buddhists. She called the pledge an "instrument of intimidation." And she wrote that employees who sign it "while harboring legitimate religious and political objections" could be exposed to a charge of perjury.

Margaret Atwell, the Fullerton school's associate vice president for academic affairs, replied in an e-mail that Gonaver was not allowed to submit any statement, no matter what the practice at UC. Gonaver would have to sign the oath or lose the job, Atwell said.

Gonaver refused.

Potes-Fellow, the Cal State spokeswoman, said the university stands by its stricter interpretation of the requirement and is not affected by how UC or other public institutions handle the oath.

"The university concluded that state law did not allow her to attach her addendum," Potes-Fellow said.

The attorney general's statement that Kearney-Brown was allowed to attach her oath did not violate Cal State's policy because it was not an addendum, Potes-Fellow said. "We think the circumstances are different in both cases," she said.

Gonaver said the attorney general's statement does not go far enough in answering her objections to the oath. But if she had been offered a chance to use it last fall, she said, she probably would have signed the oath and would have been teaching all year at Fullerton.

Now, she would like to see the oath eliminated for all public employees except those who deal with sensitive information. She also would like an apology and a job next year.

"It makes no sense that they do this to people," she said. "It's people who take it seriously who don't get hired."

[matthew]

May 7, 2008
But Will the Media Ever Report on Them?
Pentagon Propaganda Documents Go Online

By JOHN STAUBER

Eight thousand pages of documents related to the Pentagon's illegal propaganda campaign, known as the Pentagon military analyst program, are now online for the world to see, although in a format that makes it impossible to easily search them and therefore difficult to read and dissect. This trove includes the documents pried out of the Pentagon by David Barstow and used as the basis for his stunning investigation that appeared in the New York Times on April 20, 2008.

The Pentagon program, which clearly violated US law against covert government propaganda, embedded more than 75 retired military officers -- most of them with financial ties to war contractors -- into the TV networks as "message surrogates" for the Bush Administration. To date, every major commercial TV network has failed to report this story, covering up their complicity and keeping the existence of this scandal from their audiences.

News of the Pentagon's online posting of the documents came from Joe Trento of the National Security News Service, who notes that NSNS provided the New York Times "limited information about a military office early in the reporting process."

Here is the official Pentagon website with the 8,000 pages of documents, the most interesting and revealing of them previously secret and only available to the Pentagon and the New York Times:

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/

More than two weeks after the New York Times reported on the Penatgon's military analyst program to sell controversial policies such as the invasion of Iraq, the broadcast television news outlets implicated in the program are hoping to tough out the scandal by refusing to report it. Recently Media Matters of America (MMA) reported that, according to a search of the Nexis database, "the three major broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- have still not mentioned the report at all."

The Pew Excellence in Journalism project has a chart showing that " there was virtually no mainstream media follow up to The Times’ expose" with the only national TV coverage being the introduction segment and a live debate (featuring me) on the PBS NewsHour.

Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro and three dozen colleagues have sent a letter to the Department of Defense Inspector General calling for an investigation of this "propaganda campaign aimed at deliberately misleading the American public."

John Stauber is the executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy and co-author of two books about the war: Iraq: Weapons of Mass Deception and The Best War Ever.

[matthew]

More on that story about the Pentagon hand-picking more than a hundred ex-personnel now representing, as lobbyists, military contractors set to profit from Iraq War, for use as "analysts" for the pliant mainstream media apparatus:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/10/analysts/index.html?%20source=rss&aim=/opinion/greenwald

Now, if we could only tear THAT SAME MEDIA away from Obama v Clinton for a couple of hours.

[matthew]

I meant to post this a while ago. The article itself is a bit long, however this little audio commentary/summary is excellent:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/04/20/washington/20080419_RUMSFELD.html


Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand
A PENTAGON CAMPAIGN Retired officers have been used to shape terrorism coverage from inside the TV and radio networks.
By DAVID BARSTOW
Published: April 20, 2008

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded "the gulag of our times" by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration's communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as "military analysts" whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration's war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.

Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.

In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.

A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.

"It was them saying, 'We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,' " Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. "This was a coherent, active policy," he said.

As conditions in Iraq deteriorated, Mr. Allard recalled, he saw a yawning gap between what analysts were told in private briefings and what subsequent inquiries and books later revealed.

"Night and day," Mr. Allard said, "I felt we'd been hosed."

The Pentagon defended its relationship with military analysts, saying they had been given only factual information about the war. "The intent and purpose of this is nothing other than an earnest attempt to inform the American people," Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said.

It was, Mr. Whitman added, "a bit incredible" to think retired military officers could be "wound up" and turned into "puppets of the Defense Department."

Many analysts strongly denied that they had either been co-opted or had allowed outside business interests to affect their on-air comments, and some have used their platforms to criticize the conduct of the war. Several, like Jeffrey D. McCausland, a CBS military analyst and defense industry lobbyist, said they kept their networks informed of their outside work and recused themselves from coverage that touched on business interests.

"I'm not here representing the administration," Dr. McCausland said.

Some network officials, meanwhile, acknowledged only a limited understanding of their analysts' interactions with the administration. They said that while they were sensitive to potential conflicts of interest, they did not hold their analysts to the same ethical standards as their news employees regarding outside financial interests. The onus is on their analysts to disclose conflicts, they said. And whatever the contributions of military analysts, they also noted the many network journalists who have covered the war for years in all its complexity.

Five years into the Iraq war, most details of the architecture and execution of the Pentagon's campaign have never been disclosed. But The Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation.

These records reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated.

Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as "message force multipliers" or "surrogates" who could be counted on to deliver administration "themes and messages" to millions of Americans "in the form of their own opinions."

Though many analysts are paid network consultants, making $500 to $1,000 per appearance, in Pentagon meetings they sometimes spoke as if they were operating behind enemy lines, interviews and transcripts show. Some offered the Pentagon tips on how to outmaneuver the networks, or as one analyst put it to Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, "the Chris Matthewses and the Wolf Blitzers of the world." Some warned of planned stories or sent the Pentagon copies of their correspondence with network news executives. Many — although certainly not all — faithfully echoed talking points intended to counter critics.

"Good work," Thomas G. McInerney, a retired Air Force general, consultant and Fox News analyst, wrote to the Pentagon after receiving fresh talking points in late 2006. "We will use it."

Again and again, records show, the administration has enlisted analysts as a rapid reaction force to rebut what it viewed as critical news coverage, some of it by the networks' own Pentagon correspondents. For example, when news articles revealed that troops in Iraq were dying because of inadequate body armor, a senior Pentagon official wrote to his colleagues: "I think our analysts — properly armed — can push back in that arena."

The documents released by the Pentagon do not show any quid pro quo between commentary and contracts. But some analysts said they had used the special access as a marketing and networking opportunity or as a window into future business possibilities.

John C. Garrett is a retired Marine colonel and unpaid analyst for Fox News TV and radio. He is also a lobbyist at Patton Boggs who helps firms win Pentagon contracts, including in Iraq. In promotional materials, he states that as a military analyst he "is privy to weekly access and briefings with the secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other high level policy makers in the administration." One client told investors that Mr. Garrett's special access and decades of experience helped him "to know in advance — and in detail — how best to meet the needs" of the Defense Department and other agencies.

In interviews Mr. Garrett said there was an inevitable overlap between his dual roles. He said he had gotten "information you just otherwise would not get," from the briefings and three Pentagon-sponsored trips to Iraq. He also acknowledged using this access and information to identify opportunities for clients. "You can't help but look for that," he said, adding, "If you know a capability that would fill a niche or need, you try to fill it. "That's good for everybody."

At the same time, in e-mail messages to the Pentagon, Mr. Garrett displayed an eagerness to be supportive with his television and radio commentary. "Please let me know if you have any specific points you want covered or that you would prefer to downplay," he wrote in January 2007, before President Bush went on TV to describe the surge strategy in Iraq.

Conversely, the administration has demonstrated that there is a price for sustained criticism, many analysts said. "You'll lose all access," Dr. McCausland said.

With a majority of Americans calling the war a mistake despite all administration attempts to sway public opinion, the Pentagon has focused in the last couple of years on cultivating in particular military analysts frequently seen and heard in conservative news outlets, records and interviews show.

Some of these analysts were on the mission to Cuba on June 24, 2005 — the first of six such Guantánamo trips — which was designed to mobilize analysts against the growing perception of Guantánamo as an international symbol of inhumane treatment. On the flight to Cuba, for much of the day at Guantánamo and on the flight home that night, Pentagon officials briefed the 10 or so analysts on their key messages — how much had been spent improving the facility, the abuse endured by guards, the extensive rights afforded detainees.

The results came quickly. The analysts went on TV and radio, decrying Amnesty International, criticizing calls to close the facility and asserting that all detainees were treated humanely.

"The impressions that you're getting from the media and from the various pronouncements being made by people who have not been here in my opinion are totally false," Donald W. Shepperd, a retired Air Force general, reported live on CNN by phone from Guantánamo that same afternoon.

The next morning, Montgomery Meigs, a retired Army general and NBC analyst, appeared on "Today." "There's been over $100 million of new construction," he reported. "The place is very professionally run."

Within days, transcripts of the analysts' appearances were circulated to senior White House and Pentagon officials, cited as evidence of progress in the battle for hearts and minds at home.

Charting the Campaign

By early 2002, detailed planning for a possible Iraq invasion was under way, yet an obstacle loomed. Many Americans, polls showed, were uneasy about invading a country with no clear connection to the Sept. 11 attacks. Pentagon and White House officials believed the military analysts could play a crucial role in helping overcome this resistance.

Torie Clarke, the former public relations executive who oversaw the Pentagon's dealings with the analysts as assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, had come to her job with distinct ideas about achieving what she called "information dominance." In a spin-saturated news culture, she argued, opinion is swayed most by voices perceived as authoritative and utterly independent.

And so even before Sept. 11, she built a system within the Pentagon to recruit "key influentials" — movers and shakers from all walks who with the proper ministrations might be counted on to generate support for Mr. Rumsfeld's priorities.

In the months after Sept. 11, as every network rushed to retain its own all-star squad of retired military officers, Ms. Clarke and her staff sensed a new opportunity. To Ms. Clarke's team, the military analysts were the ultimate "key influential" — authoritative, most of them decorated war heroes, all reaching mass audiences.

The analysts, they noticed, often got more airtime than network reporters, and they were not merely explaining the capabilities of Apache helicopters. They were framing how viewers ought to interpret events. What is more, while the analysts were in the news media, they were not of the news media. They were military men, many of them ideologically in sync with the administration's neoconservative brain trust, many of them important players in a military industry anticipating large budget increases to pay for an Iraq war.

Even analysts with no defense industry ties, and no fondness for the administration, were reluctant to be critical of military leaders, many of whom were friends. "It is very hard for me to criticize the United States Army," said William L. Nash, a retired Army general and ABC analyst. "It is my life."

Other administrations had made sporadic, small-scale attempts to build relationships with the occasional military analyst. But these were trifling compared with what Ms. Clarke's team had in mind. Don Meyer, an aide to Ms. Clarke, said a strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war. Journalists were secondary. "We didn't want to rely on them to be our primary vehicle to get information out," Mr. Meyer said.

The Pentagon's regular press office would be kept separate from the military analysts. The analysts would instead be catered to by a small group of political appointees, with the point person being Brent T. Krueger, another senior aide to Ms. Clarke. The decision recalled other administration tactics that subverted traditional journalism. Federal agencies, for example, have paid columnists to write favorably about the administration. They have distributed to local TV stations hundreds of fake news segments with fawning accounts of administration accomplishments. The Pentagon itself has made covert payments to Iraqi newspapers to publish coalition propaganda.

Rather than complain about the "media filter," each of these techniques simply converted the filter into an amplifier. This time, Mr. Krueger said, the military analysts would in effect be "writing the op-ed" for the war.

Assembling the Team

From the start, interviews show, the White House took a keen interest in which analysts had been identified by the Pentagon, requesting lists of potential recruits, and suggesting names. Ms. Clarke's team wrote summaries describing their backgrounds, business affiliations and where they stood on the war.

"Rumsfeld ultimately cleared off on all invitees," said Mr. Krueger, who left the Pentagon in 2004. (Through a spokesman, Mr. Rumsfeld declined to comment for this article.)

Over time, the Pentagon recruited more than 75 retired officers, although some participated only briefly or sporadically. The largest contingent was affiliated with Fox News, followed by NBC and CNN, the other networks with 24-hour cable outlets. But analysts from CBS and ABC were included, too. Some recruits, though not on any network payroll, were influential in other ways — either because they were sought out by radio hosts, or because they often published op-ed articles or were quoted in magazines, Web sites and newspapers. At least nine of them have written op-ed articles for The Times.

The group was heavily represented by men involved in the business of helping companies win military contracts. Several held senior positions with contractors that gave them direct responsibility for winning new Pentagon business. James Marks, a retired Army general and analyst for CNN from 2004 to 2007, pursued military and intelligence contracts as a senior executive with McNeil Technologies. Still others held board positions with military firms that gave them responsibility for government business. General McInerney, the Fox analyst, for example, sits on the boards of several military contractors, including Nortel Government Solutions, a supplier of communication networks.

Several were defense industry lobbyists, such as Dr. McCausland, who works at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, a major lobbying firm where he is director of a national security team that represents several military contractors. "We offer clients access to key decision makers," Dr. McCausland's team promised on the firm's Web site.

Dr. McCausland was not the only analyst making this pledge. Another was Joseph W. Ralston, a retired Air Force general. Soon after signing on with CBS, General Ralston was named vice chairman of the Cohen Group, a consulting firm headed by a former defense secretary, William Cohen, himself now a "world affairs" analyst for CNN. "The Cohen Group knows that getting to 'yes' in the aerospace and defense market — whether in the United States or abroad — requires that companies have a thorough, up-to-date understanding of the thinking of government decision makers," the company tells prospective clients on its Web site.

There were also ideological ties.

Two of NBC's most prominent analysts, Barry R. McCaffrey and the late Wayne A. Downing, were on the advisory board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, an advocacy group created with White House encouragement in 2002 to help make the case for ousting Saddam Hussein. Both men also had their own consulting firms and sat on the boards of major military contractors.

Many also shared with Mr. Bush's national security team a belief that pessimistic war coverage broke the nation's will to win in Vietnam, and there was a mutual resolve not to let that happen with this war.

This was a major theme, for example, with Paul E. Vallely, a Fox News analyst from 2001 to 2007. A retired Army general who had specialized in psychological warfare, Mr. Vallely co-authored a paper in 1980 that accused American news organizations of failing to defend the nation from "enemy" propaganda during Vietnam.

"We lost the war — not because we were outfought, but because we were out Psyoped," he wrote. He urged a radically new approach to psychological operations in future wars — taking aim at not just foreign adversaries but domestic audiences, too. He called his approach "MindWar" — using network TV and radio to "strengthen our national will to victory."


The Selling of the War

From their earliest sessions with the military analysts, Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides spoke as if they were all part of the same team.

In interviews, participants described a powerfully seductive environment — the uniformed escorts to Mr. Rumsfeld's private conference room, the best government china laid out, the embossed name cards, the blizzard of PowerPoints, the solicitations of advice and counsel, the appeals to duty and country, the warm thank you notes from the secretary himself.

"Oh, you have no idea," Mr. Allard said, describing the effect. "You're back. They listen to you. They listen to what you say on TV." It was, he said, "psyops on steroids" — a nuanced exercise in influence through flattery and proximity. "It's not like it's, 'We'll pay you $500 to get our story out,' " he said. "It's more subtle."

The access came with a condition. Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon.

In the fall and winter leading up to the invasion, the Pentagon armed its analysts with talking points portraying Iraq as an urgent threat. The basic case became a familiar mantra: Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons, was developing nuclear weapons, and might one day slip some to Al Qaeda; an invasion would be a relatively quick and inexpensive "war of liberation."

At the Pentagon, members of Ms. Clarke's staff marveled at the way the analysts seamlessly incorporated material from talking points and briefings as if it was their own.

"You could see that they were messaging," Mr. Krueger said. "You could see they were taking verbatim what the secretary was saying or what the technical specialists were saying. And they were saying it over and over and over." Some days, he added, "We were able to click on every single station and every one of our folks were up there delivering our message. You'd look at them and say, 'This is working.' "

On April 12, 2003, with major combat almost over, Mr. Rumsfeld drafted a memorandum to Ms. Clarke. "Let's think about having some of the folks who did such a good job as talking heads in after this thing is over," he wrote.

By summer, though, the first signs of the insurgency had emerged. Reports from journalists based in Baghdad were increasingly suffused with the imagery of mayhem.

The Pentagon did not have to search far for a counterweight.

It was time, an internal Pentagon strategy memorandum urged, to "re-energize surrogates and message-force multipliers," starting with the military analysts.

The memorandum led to a proposal to take analysts on a tour of Iraq in September 2003, timed to help overcome the sticker shock from Mr. Bush's request for $87 billion in emergency war financing.

The group included four analysts from Fox News, one each from CNN and ABC, and several research-group luminaries whose opinion articles appear regularly in the nation's op-ed pages.

The trip invitation promised a look at "the real situation on the ground in Iraq."

The situation, as described in scores of books, was deteriorating. L. Paul Bremer III, then the American viceroy in Iraq, wrote in his memoir, "My Year in Iraq," that he had privately warned the White House that the United States had "about half the number of soldiers we needed here."

"We're up against a growing and sophisticated threat," Mr. Bremer recalled telling the president during a private White House dinner.

That dinner took place on Sept. 24, while the analysts were touring Iraq.

Yet these harsh realities were elided, or flatly contradicted, during the official presentations for the analysts, records show. The itinerary, scripted to the minute, featured brief visits to a model school, a few refurbished government buildings, a center for women's rights, a mass grave and even the gardens of Babylon.

Mostly the analysts attended briefings. These sessions, records show, spooled out an alternative narrative, depicting an Iraq bursting with political and economic energy, its security forces blossoming. On the crucial question of troop levels, the briefings echoed the White House line: No reinforcements were needed. The "growing and sophisticated threat" described by Mr. Bremer was instead depicted as degraded, isolated and on the run.

"We're winning," a briefing document proclaimed.

One trip participant, General Nash of ABC, said some briefings were so clearly "artificial" that he joked to another group member that they were on "the George Romney memorial trip to Iraq," a reference to Mr. Romney's infamous claim that American officials had "brainwashed" him into supporting the Vietnam War during a tour there in 1965, while he was governor of Michigan.

But if the trip pounded the message of progress, it also represented a business opportunity: direct access to the most senior civilian and military leaders in Iraq and Kuwait, including many with a say in how the president's $87 billion would be spent. It also was a chance to gather inside information about the most pressing needs confronting the American mission: the acute shortages of "up-armored" Humvees; the billions to be spent building military bases; the urgent need for interpreters; and the ambitious plans to train Iraq's security forces.

Information and access of this nature had undeniable value for trip participants like William V. Cowan and Carlton A. Sherwood.

Mr. Cowan, a Fox analyst and retired Marine colonel, was the chief executive of a new military firm, the wvc3 Group. Mr. Sherwood was its executive vice president. At the time, the company was seeking contracts worth tens of millions to supply body armor and counterintelligence services in Iraq. In addition, wvc3 Group had a written agreement to use its influence and connections to help tribal leaders in Al Anbar Province win reconstruction contracts from the coalition.

"Those sheiks wanted access to the C.P.A.," Mr. Cowan recalled in an interview, referring to the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Mr. Cowan said he pleaded their cause during the trip. "I tried to push hard with some of Bremer's people to engage these people of Al Anbar," he said.

Back in Washington, Pentagon officials kept a nervous eye on how the trip translated on the airwaves. Uncomfortable facts had bubbled up during the trip. One briefer, for example, mentioned that the Army was resorting to packing inadequately armored Humvees with sandbags and Kevlar blankets. Descriptions of the Iraqi security forces were withering. "They can't shoot, but then again, they don't," one officer told them, according to one participant's notes.

"I saw immediately in 2003 that things were going south," General Vallely, one of the Fox analysts on the trip, recalled in an interview with The Times.

The Pentagon, though, need not have worried.

"You can't believe the progress," General Vallely told Alan Colmes of Fox News upon his return. He predicted the insurgency would be "down to a few numbers" within months.

"We could not be more excited, more pleased," Mr. Cowan told Greta Van Susteren of Fox News. There was barely a word about armor shortages or corrupt Iraqi security forces. And on the key strategic question of the moment — whether to send more troops — the analysts were unanimous.

"I am so much against adding more troops," General Shepperd said on CNN.

[matthew]

Access and Influence

Inside the Pentagon and at the White House, the trip was viewed as a masterpiece in the management of perceptions, not least because it gave fuel to complaints that "mainstream" journalists were ignoring the good news in Iraq.

"We're hitting a home run on this trip," a senior Pentagon official wrote in an e-mail message to Richard B. Myers and Peter Pace, then chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Its success only intensified the Pentagon's campaign. The pace of briefings accelerated. More trips were organized. Eventually the effort involved officials from Washington to Baghdad to Kabul to Guantánamo and back to Tampa, Fla., the headquarters of United States Central Command.

The scale reflected strong support from the top. When officials in Iraq were slow to organize another trip for analysts, a Pentagon official fired off an e-mail message warning that the trips "have the highest levels of visibility" at the White House and urging them to get moving before Lawrence Di Rita, one of Mr. Rumsfeld's closest aides, "picks up the phone and starts calling the 4-stars."

Mr. Di Rita, no longer at the Defense Department, said in an interview that a "conscious decision" was made to rely on the military analysts to counteract "the increasingly negative view of the war" coming from journalists in Iraq. The analysts, he said, generally had "a more supportive view" of the administration and the war, and the combination of their TV platforms and military cachet made them ideal for rebutting critical coverage of issues like troop morale, treatment of detainees, inadequate equipment or poorly trained Iraqi security forces. "On those issues, they were more likely to be seen as credible spokesmen," he said.

For analysts with military industry ties, the attention brought access to a widening circle of influential officials beyond the contacts they had accumulated over the course of their careers.

Charles T. Nash, a Fox military analyst and retired Navy captain, is a consultant who helps small companies break into the military market. Suddenly, he had entree to a host of senior military leaders, many of whom he had never met. It was, he said, like being embedded with the Pentagon leadership. "You start to recognize what's most important to them," he said, adding, "There's nothing like seeing stuff firsthand."

Some Pentagon officials said they were well aware that some analysts viewed their special access as a business advantage. "Of course we realized that," Mr. Krueger said. "We weren't naïve about that."

They also understood the financial relationship between the networks and their analysts. Many analysts were being paid by the "hit," the number of times they appeared on TV. The more an analyst could boast of fresh inside information from high-level Pentagon "sources," the more hits he could expect. The more hits, the greater his potential influence in the military marketplace, where several analysts prominently advertised their network roles.

"They have taken lobbying and the search for contracts to a far higher level," Mr. Krueger said. "This has been highly honed."

Mr. Di Rita, though, said it never occurred to him that analysts might use their access to curry favor. Nor, he said, did the Pentagon try to exploit this dynamic. "That's not something that ever crossed my mind," he said. In any event, he argued, the analysts and the networks were the ones responsible for any ethical complications. "We assume they know where the lines are," he said.

The analysts met personally with Mr. Rumsfeld at least 18 times, records show, but that was just the beginning. They had dozens more sessions with the most senior members of his brain trust and access to officials responsible for managing the billions being spent in Iraq. Other groups of "key influentials" had meetings, but not nearly as often as the analysts.

An internal memorandum in 2005 helped explain why. The memorandum, written by a Pentagon official who had accompanied analysts to Iraq, said that based on her observations during the trip, the analysts "are having a greater impact" on network coverage of the military. "They have now become the go-to guys not only on breaking stories, but they influence the views on issues," she wrote.

Other branches of the administration also began to make use of the analysts. Mr. Gonzales, then the attorney general, met with them soon after news leaked that the government was wiretapping terrorism suspects in the United States without warrants, Pentagon records show. When David H. Petraeus was appointed the commanding general in Iraq in January 2007, one of his early acts was to meet with the analysts.

"We knew we had extraordinary access," said Timur J. Eads, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and Fox analyst who is vice president of government relations for Blackbird Technologies, a fast-growing military contractor.

Like several other analysts, Mr. Eads said he had at times held his tongue on television for fear that "some four-star could call up and say, 'Kill that contract.' " For example, he believed Pentagon officials misled the analysts about the progress of Iraq's security forces. "I know a snow job when I see one," he said. He did not share this on TV.

"Human nature," he explained, though he noted other instances when he was critical.

Some analysts said that even before the war started, they privately had questions about the justification for the invasion, but were careful not to express them on air.

Mr. Bevelacqua, then a Fox analyst, was among those invited to a briefing in early 2003 about Iraq's purported stockpiles of illicit weapons. He recalled asking the briefer whether the United States had "smoking gun" proof.

" 'We don't have any hard evidence,' " Mr. Bevelacqua recalled the briefer replying. He said he and other analysts were alarmed by this concession. "We are looking at ourselves saying, 'What are we doing?' "

Another analyst, Robert L. Maginnis, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who works in the Pentagon for a military contractor, attended the same briefing and recalled feeling "very disappointed" after being shown satellite photographs purporting to show bunkers associated with a hidden weapons program. Mr. Maginnis said he concluded that the analysts were being "manipulated" to convey a false sense of certainty about the evidence of the weapons. Yet he and Mr. Bevelacqua and the other analysts who attended the briefing did not share any misgivings with the American public.

Mr. Bevelacqua and another Fox analyst, Mr. Cowan, had formed the wvc3 Group, and hoped to win military and national security contracts.

"There's no way I was going to go down that road and get completely torn apart," Mr. Bevelacqua said. "You're talking about fighting a huge machine."

Some e-mail messages between the Pentagon and the analysts reveal an implicit trade of privileged access for favorable coverage. Robert H. Scales Jr., a retired Army general and analyst for Fox News and National Public Radio whose consulting company advises several military firms on weapons and tactics used in Iraq, wanted the Pentagon to approve high-level briefings for him inside Iraq in 2006.

"Recall the stuff I did after my last visit," he wrote. "I will do the same this time."

Pentagon Keeps Tabs

As it happened, the analysts' news media appearances were being closely monitored. The Pentagon paid a private contractor, Omnitec Solutions, hundreds of thousands of dollars to scour databases for any trace of the analysts, be it a segment on "The O'Reilly Factor" or an interview with The Daily Inter Lake in Montana, circulation 20,000.

Omnitec evaluated their appearances using the same tools as corporate branding experts. One report, assessing the impact of several trips to Iraq in 2005, offered example after example of analysts echoing Pentagon themes on all the networks.

"Commentary from all three Iraq trips was extremely positive over all," the report concluded.

In interviews, several analysts reacted with dismay when told they were described as reliable "surrogates" in Pentagon documents. And some asserted that their Pentagon sessions were, as David L. Grange, a retired Army general and CNN analyst put it, "just upfront information," while others pointed out, accurately, that they did not always agree with the administration or each other. "None of us drink the Kool-Aid," General Scales said.

Likewise, several also denied using their special access for business gain. "Not related at all," General Shepperd said, pointing out that many in the Pentagon held CNN "in the lowest esteem."

Still, even the mildest of criticism could draw a challenge. Several analysts told of fielding telephone calls from displeased defense officials only minutes after being on the air.

On Aug. 3, 2005, 14 marines died in Iraq. That day, Mr. Cowan, who said he had grown increasingly uncomfortable with the "twisted version of reality" being pushed on analysts in briefings, called the Pentagon to give "a heads-up" that some of his comments on Fox "may not all be friendly," Pentagon records show. Mr. Rumsfeld's senior aides quickly arranged a private briefing for him, yet when he told Bill O'Reilly that the United States was "not on a good glide path right now" in Iraq, the repercussions were swift.

Mr. Cowan said he was "precipitously fired from the analysts group" for this appearance. The Pentagon, he wrote in an e-mail message, "simply didn't like the fact that I wasn't carrying their water." The next day James T. Conway, then director of operations for the Joint Chiefs, presided over another conference call with analysts. He urged them, a transcript shows, not to let the marines' deaths further erode support for the war.

"The strategic target remains our population," General Conway said. "We can lose people day in and day out, but they're never going to beat our military. What they can and will do if they can is strip away our support. And you guys can help us not let that happen."

"General, I just made that point on the air," an analyst replied.

"Let's work it together, guys," General Conway urged.

The Generals' Revolt

The full dimensions of this mutual embrace were perhaps never clearer than in April 2006, after several of Mr. Rumsfeld's former generals — none of them network military analysts — went public with devastating critiques of his wartime performance. Some called for his resignation.

On Friday, April 14, with what came to be called the "Generals' Revolt" dominating headlines, Mr. Rumsfeld instructed aides to summon military analysts to a meeting with him early the next week, records show. When an aide urged a short delay to "give our big guys on the West Coast a little more time to buy a ticket and get here," Mr. Rumsfeld's office insisted that "the boss" wanted the meeting fast "for impact on the current story."

That same day, Pentagon officials helped two Fox analysts, General McInerney and General Vallely, write an opinion article for The Wall Street Journal defending Mr. Rumsfeld.

"Starting to write it now," General Vallely wrote to the Pentagon that afternoon. "Any input for the article," he added a little later, "will be much appreciated." Mr. Rumsfeld's office quickly forwarded talking points and statistics to rebut the notion of a spreading revolt.

"Vallely is going to use the numbers," a Pentagon official reported that afternoon.

The standard secrecy notwithstanding, plans for this session leaked, producing a front-page story in The Times that Sunday. In damage-control mode, Pentagon officials scrambled to present the meeting as routine and directed that communications with analysts be kept "very formal," records show. "This is very, very sensitive now," a Pentagon official warned subordinates.

On Tuesday, April 18, some 17 analysts assembled at the Pentagon with Mr. Rumsfeld and General Pace, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

A transcript of that session, never before disclosed, shows a shared determination to marginalize war critics and revive public support for the war.

"I'm an old intel guy," said one analyst. (The transcript omits speakers' names.) "And I can sum all of this up, unfortunately, with one word. That is Psyops. Now most people may hear that and they think, 'Oh my God, they're trying to brainwash.' "

"What are you, some kind of a nut?" Mr. Rumsfeld cut in, drawing laughter. "You don't believe in the Constitution?"

There was little discussion about the actual criticism pouring forth from Mr. Rumsfeld's former generals. Analysts argued that opposition to the war was rooted in perceptions fed by the news media, not reality. The administration's overall war strategy, they counseled, was "brilliant" and "very successful."

"Frankly," one participant said, "from a military point of view, the penalty, 2,400 brave Americans whom we lost, 3,000 in an hour and 15 minutes, is relative."

An analyst said at another point: "This is a wider war. And whether we have democracy in Iraq or not, it doesn't mean a tinker's damn if we end up with the result we want, which is a regime over there that's not a threat to us."

"Yeah," Mr. Rumsfeld said, taking notes.

But winning or not, they bluntly warned, the administration was in grave political danger so long as most Americans viewed Iraq as a lost cause. "America hates a loser," one analyst said.

Much of the session was devoted to ways that Mr. Rumsfeld could reverse the "political tide." One analyst urged Mr. Rumsfeld to "just crush these people," and assured him that "most of the gentlemen at the table" would enthusiastically support him if he did.

"You are the leader," the analyst told Mr. Rumsfeld. "You are our guy."

At another point, an analyst made a suggestion: "In one of your speeches you ought to say, 'Everybody stop for a minute and imagine an Iraq ruled by Zarqawi.' And then you just go down the list and say, 'All right, we've got oil, money, sovereignty, access to the geographic center of gravity of the Middle East, blah, blah, blah.' If you can just paint a mental picture for Joe America to say, 'Oh my God, I can't imagine a world like that.' "

Even as they assured Mr. Rumsfeld that they stood ready to help in this public relations offensive, the analysts sought guidance on what they should cite as the next "milestone" that would, as one analyst put it, "keep the American people focused on the idea that we're moving forward to a positive end." They placed particular emphasis on the growing confrontation with Iran.

"When you said 'long war,' you changed the psyche of the American people to expect this to be a generational event," an analyst said. "And again, I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job..."

"Get in line," Mr. Rumsfeld interjected.

The meeting ended and Mr. Rumsfeld, appearing pleased and relaxed, took the entire group into a small study and showed off treasured keepsakes from his life, several analysts recalled.

Soon after, analysts hit the airwaves. The Omnitec monitoring reports, circulated to more than 80 officials, confirmed that analysts repeated many of the Pentagon's talking points: that Mr. Rumsfeld consulted "frequently and sufficiently" with his generals; that he was not "overly concerned" with the criticisms; that the meeting focused "on more important topics at hand," including the next milestone in Iraq, the formation of a new government.

Days later, Mr. Rumsfeld wrote a memorandum distilling their collective guidance into bullet points. Two were underlined:

"Focus on the Global War on Terror — not simply Iraq. The wider war — the long war."

"Link Iraq to Iran. Iran is the concern. If we fail in Iraq or Afghanistan, it will help Iran."

But if Mr. Rumsfeld found the session instructive, at least one participant, General Nash, the ABC analyst, was repulsed.

"I walked away from that session having total disrespect for my fellow commentators, with perhaps one or two exceptions," he said.

View From the Networks

Two weeks ago General Petraeus took time out from testifying before Congress about Iraq for a conference call with military analysts.

Mr. Garrett, the Fox analyst and Patton Boggs lobbyist, said he told General Petraeus during the call to "keep up the great work."

"Hey," Mr. Garrett said in an interview, "anything we can do to help."

For the moment, though, because of heavy election coverage and general war fatigue, military analysts are not getting nearly as much TV time, and the networks have trimmed their rosters of analysts. The conference call with General Petraeus, for example, produced little in the way of immediate coverage.

Still, almost weekly the Pentagon continues to conduct briefings with selected military analysts. Many analysts said network officials were only dimly aware of these interactions. The networks, they said, have little grasp of how often they meet with senior officials, or what is discussed.

"I don't think NBC was even aware we were participating," said Rick Francona, a longtime military analyst for the network.

Some networks publish biographies on their Web sites that describe their analysts' military backgrounds and, in some cases, give at least limited information about their business ties. But many analysts also said the networks asked few questions about their outside business interests, the nature of their work or the potential for that work to create conflicts of interest. "None of that ever happened," said Mr. Allard, an NBC analyst until 2006.

"The worst conflict of interest was no interest."

Mr. Allard and other analysts said their network handlers also raised no objections when the Defense Department began paying their commercial airfare for Pentagon-sponsored trips to Iraq — a clear ethical violation for most news organizations.

CBS News declined to comment on what it knew about its military analysts' business affiliations or what steps it took to guard against potential conflicts.

NBC News also declined to discuss its procedures for hiring and monitoring military analysts. The network issued a short statement: "We have clear policies in place to assure that the people who appear on our air have been appropriately vetted and that nothing in their profile would lead to even a perception of a conflict of interest."

Jeffrey W. Schneider, a spokesman for ABC, said that while the network's military consultants were not held to the same ethical rules as its full-time journalists, they were expected to keep the network informed about any outside business entanglements. "We make it clear to them we expect them to keep us closely apprised," he said.

A spokeswoman for Fox News said executives "refused to participate" in this article.

CNN requires its military analysts to disclose in writing all outside sources of income. But like the other networks, it does not provide its military analysts with the kind of written, specific ethical guidelines it gives its full-time employees for avoiding real or apparent conflicts of interest.

Yet even where controls exist, they have sometimes proven porous.

CNN, for example, said it was unaware for nearly three years that one of its main military analysts, General Marks, was deeply involved in the business of seeking government contracts, including contracts related to Iraq.

General Marks was hired by CNN in 2004, about the time he took a management position at McNeil Technologies, where his job was to pursue military and intelligence contracts. As required, General Marks disclosed that he received income from McNeil Technologies. But the disclosure form did not require him to describe what his job entailed, and CNN acknowledges it failed to do additional vetting.

"We did not ask Mr. Marks the follow-up questions we should have," CNN said in a written statement.

In an interview, General Marks said it was no secret at CNN that his job at McNeil Technologies was about winning contracts. "I mean, that's what McNeil does," he said.

CNN, however, said it did not know the nature of McNeil's military business or what General Marks did for the company. If he was bidding on Pentagon contracts, CNN said, that should have disqualified him from being a military analyst for the network. But in the summer and fall of 2006, even as he was regularly asked to comment on conditions in Iraq, General Marks was working intensively on bidding for a $4.6 billion contract to provide thousands of translators to United States forces in Iraq. In fact, General Marks was made president of the McNeil spin-off that won the huge contract in December 2006.

General Marks said his work on the contract did not affect his commentary on CNN. "I've got zero challenge separating myself from a business interest," he said.

But CNN said it had no idea about his role in the contract until July 2007, when it reviewed his most recent disclosure form, submitted months earlier, and finally made inquiries about his new job.

"We saw the extent of his dealings and determined at that time we should end our relationship with him," CNN said.

[Big Baby Jesus]

"We interrupt regular programming to announce that the United States of America has defaulted …" Part 1

By: Satyajit Das

On 30 October 1938, the American Radio Drama series Mercury Theatre aired "The War of the Worlds", directed by Orson Welles. Adapted from H.G. Welles’ novel, the first half of the broadcast was scripted as a series of dramatic news bulletins of a Martian invasion. Listeners who had missed or ignored the opening credits assumed that the invasion was real. People fled their homes in panic. Phone calls swamped police. Today the financial equivalent of this broadcast would be the announcement: "we interrupt regular programming to announce that the United States of America has defaulted on its debt!"

Default entails failure to honour contractual obligations; in the case of debt, non-payment of interest or principal payments due to the lender. The financial impact of default is the loss suffered by the lender.

Lenders to the United States government have suffered significant losses .The losses have not been from non-payment but because repayments have been in a constantly debased currency – the dollar.

Assume a Japanese investor bought 30 year US Treasury bond in 1985 when the US$/ yen exchange rate was US$1 = Yen 250. Based on a current exchange rate of US$1 = Yen 105, the investor has lost 58% of the investment. The investor can take comfort that at the low of US$1=Yen 84, the investor would have lost 66%. European investors who bought US government bonds in recent years would have also suffered significant losses. Based on the highest US$/ Euro exchange rate (Euro1 = US$ 0.85) and the current trading levels (Euro1 = US$ 1.56), the investor would have lost (up to) 46%.

Given that in a typical sovereign default the investor loses 50% to 80% of the value of the investment, the losses suffered are not far short of default. Despite "strong dollar" official policies, a case can be made that the US is in the process of defaulting on its obligations via a systematic devaluation of its currency. The problems of the US are evident in a number of other indicators.

The US national debt as of March 2008 stands at US$9.4 trillion (that’s 12 zeros to the right of the decimal). This equates to over US$30,000 per person in the U.S. population or a little over US$60,000 per head of the U.S. working population. The US national debt has grown by US$3 trillion (50%) since 2000, when it was $6 trillion. In 2007 alone, it grew by $500 billion, from $8.7 to $9.2 trillion. In 2005, it was 67% of U.S. GDP, up from 51% in 1988. The Office of Management and Budget projects that total debt will rise to $12.3 trillion in 2013.

Of the US$4.7 trillion in private hands, US$ 2.4 trillion (51%) is held by foreign investors. Japan holds around US$600 billion (24%) and China holds US$500 billion (around 20%). U.K., Brazil and the oil exporting countries own about 6%. Middle East and Russian holdings may be higher as Belgium, Caribbean Banking Centers and Luxembourg (8%) may be vehicles for investments by oil-exporting countries wishing to avoid disclosure. As James Fallow writing in The Atlantic noted: "every person in the (rich) United States has over the past 10 years or so borrowed about $4,000 from someone in the (poor) People’s Republic of China."

The debt figures also do not include "off-balance sheet" liabilities - the US$5 trillion plus in debt and guarantees of the government sponsored enterprises ("GSE") - Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation)- that is supported by modest levels of capital (about US$81 billion). In July 2008 these obligations became de facto part of US national debt with astonishing speed. Any problem with the solvency of either institution may have implications of the AAA credit rating of the US.

US national debt is also shortening in maturity. In December 2000, the average length of US public debt held by private investors was 70 months. As at March 2008, the average length had shortened to 53 months (a decline of 24%). 71% of this debt is due in less than 5 years; 39% is due in less than 1 year. In the Clinton/ Rubin years, the Treasury stopped issuing 30 year bonds (the decision was reversed by the Bush administration). The ostensible rationale was that projected US budget surpluses would allow the government debt to be retired. Shorter dated bonds took advantage of lower shorter interest rates to reduce the interest cost and boost surpluses. The Treasury Secretary would have been aware of this variation of the "carry" trade from his investment banking days. The US must now "roll over" significant amounts of debt in the coming years.

High levels of debt are compounded by the "twin deficits" – the 2008 budget deficit forecast is US$380 billion (2.4% of GDP) and the current account deficit is expected to exceed US$ 700 billion (4.6% of GDP). The US savings rate is extremely low. US consumers have relied on asset appreciation (primarily housing and also stocks) as saving. In recent years, borrowing against asset values to fund consumption has reduced even this.

One mainstay of the US economy has been its financial system – "financial" engineering has long overtaken "real" engineering. Lawrence Summers, a former Deputy Secretary of the US Treasury, proudly extolled the merits of the US financial system in a 2001 speech at the London Stock Exchange in the following terms: "… the United States is the only country in which you can raise your first US$100 million before you buy your first suit." He gave short shrift to critics who felt that US financial sophistication was synonymous with financial instability: "[That belief] is observed in inverse proportion to knowledge of these matters."

The US financial system has been badly affected by losses on sub-prime mortgages and the current credit crisis. Losses incurred are in excess of US$ 250 billion. There is every likelihood that the losses will increase. The banking system needs additional capital despite having raised over US$200 billion to date. The Federal Reserve has bailed out Bear Stearns and further bailouts are possible. The Fed has provided over US$400 billion in funding support to the financial system. The US national debt statistics set out above do not take into account borrowings required to support the financial system.

Confidence in US financial markets has suffered. The unregulated growth of the network of securitisation and off-balance sheet vehicles – the "shadow banking" system – to the point where it now threatens the financial system has perplexed foreign observers. Byzantine US GAAP accounting practices (especially off-balance sheet debt, mark-to-market and derivative accounting) and the failures of rating agencies (a substantially US phenomenon) have also affected confidence.

The veracity of economic information has been questioned. Bill Gross of Pimco and other commentators argue that the official measure of "inflation" significantly understates actual levels because of statistical adjustments made over the past 25 years.

Mohamed El-Erian, Pimco Co-Chief Executive of PIMCO summed it up on 25 June 25, 2008: "What has suffered most is the credibility of the most sophisticated financial systems in the world."

In a 1998 speech during the Asian financial crisis, Lawrence Summers preached the merits of American-style "transparency and disclosure". It is the US that now needs "transparency and disclosure".

There are other dimensions to the malaise. John Gapper, a columnist for the Financial Times observed on 8 May 2008: "If anyone doubts the problems of US infrastructure, I suggest he or she take a flight to John F. Kennedy airport (braving the landing delay), ride a taxi on the pot-holed and congested Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and try to make a mobile phone call en route. That should settle it, particularly for those who have experienced smooth flights, train rides and road travel, and speedy communications networks in, say, Beijing, Paris or Abu Dhabi recently. The gulf in public and private infrastructure is, to put it mildly, alarming for US competitiveness."

The factors identified are well known. Lawrence Summers once observed: "In this age of electronic money investors are no longer seduced by a financial dance of a thousand veils. Only hard accurate information on reserves, current account and fiscal and monetary conditions will keep capital from fleeing precipitously at the first sign of trouble." Why haven’t the "electronic herd" abandoned the US? Fact it seems don’t matter, at least until they do.

[matthew]

Howard Zinn: US 'In Need of Rebellion'


Q: Where is the United States heading in terms of world power and influence?


HZ: America has been heading - for some time, and is heading right now - toward less and less world power, less and less influence.
Obviously, since the war in Iraq, the rest of the world has fallen away from the United States, and if American foreign policy continues in the way it has been - that is aggressive and violent and uncaring about the feelings and thoughts of other people - then the influence of the United States is going to decline more and more.

This is an empire which is on the one hand the most powerful empire that ever existed; on the other hand an empire that is crumbling - an empire that has no future ... because the rest of the world is alienated and simply because this empire is top-heavy with military commitments, with bases around the world, with the exhaustion of its own resources at home.

[This is] leading to more and more discontent and home, so I think the American empire will go the way of other empires and I think it is on its way now.

Q: Is there any hope the US will change its approach to the rest of the world?

HZ: If there is any hope, the hope lies in the American people.
[It] lies in American people becoming resentful enough and indignant enough over what has happened to their country, over the loss of dignity in the world, over the starving of human resources in the United States, the starving of education and health, the takeover of the political mechanism by corporate power and the result this has on the everyday lives of the American people.

[There is also] the higher and higher food prices, the more and more insecurity, the sending of the young people to war.

I think all of this may very well build up into a movement of rebellion.

We have seen movements of rebellion in the past: The labour movement, the civil rights movement, the movement against the war in Vietnam.

I think we may well see, if the United States keeps heading in the same direction, a new popular movement. That is the only hope for the United States.

Q: How did the US get to this point?

HZ: Well, we got to this point because ... I suppose the American people have allowed it to get it to this point because there were enough Americans who were satisfied with their lives, just enough.

Of course, many Americans were not, that is why half of the population doesn't vote, they're alienated.

But there are just enough Americans who have been satisfied, you might say getting some of the "goodies" of the empire, just some of them, just enough people satisfied to support the system, so we got this way because of the ability of the system to maintain itself by satisfying just enough of the population to keep its legitimacy.

And I think that era is coming to an end.

Q: What should the world know about the United States?

HZ: What I find many people in the rest of the world don't know is that there is an opposition in the United States.
Very often, people in the rest of the world think that Bush is popular, they think 'oh, he was elected twice', they don't understand the corruption of the American political system which enabled Bush to win twice.

They don't understand the basic undemocratic nature of the American political system in which all power is concentrated within two parties which are not very far from one another and people cannot easily tell the difference.

So I think we are in a situation where we are going to need some very fundamental changes in American society if the American people are going to be finally satisfied with the kind of society we have.

Q: Do you think the US can recover from its current position?

HZ: Well, I am hoping for a recovery process. I mean, so far we haven't seen it.

You asked about what the people of the rest of the world don't know about the United States, and as I said, they don't know that there is an opposition.

There always has been an opposition, but the opposition has always been either crushed or quieted, kept in the shadows, marginalised so their voices are not heard.

People in the rest of the world hear the voices of the American leaders.

They do not hear the voices of the people all over this country who do not like the American leaders who want different policies.[/tt]

I think also, people in the rest of the world should know that what they see in Iraq now is really a continuation of a long, long term of American imperial expansion in the world.

I think ... a lot of people in the world think that this war in Iraq is an aberration, that before this the United States was a benign power.

It has never been a benign power, from the very first, from the American Revolution, from the taking-over of Indian land, from the Mexican war, the Spanish-American war.

It is embarrassing to say, but we have a long history in this country of violent expansion and I think not only do most people in other countries [not] know this, most Americans don't know this.

Q: Is there a way for this to improve?

HZ: Well you know, whatever hope there is lies in that large number of Americans who are decent, who don't want to go to war, who don't want to kill other people.

It is hard to see that hope because these Americans who feel that way have been shut out of the communications system, so their voices are not heard, they are not seen on the television screen, but they exist.

I have gone through, in my life, a number of social movements and I have seen how at the very beginning of these social movements or just before these social movements develop, there didn't seem to be any hope.

I lived in the [US] south for seven years, in the years of the civil rights movements, and it didn't seem that there was any hope, but there was hope under the surface.

And when people organised, and when people began to act, when people began to work together, people began to take risks, people began to oppose the establishment, people began to commit civil disobedience.

Well, then that hope became manifest ... it actually turned into change.

Q: Do you think there is a way out of this and for the future influence of the US on the world to be a positive one?

HZ: Well, you know for the United States to begin to be a positive influence in the world we are going to have to have a new political leadership that is sensitive to the needs of the American people, and those needs do not include war and aggression.

[It must also be] sensitive to the needs of people in other parts of the world, sensitive enough to know that American resources, instead of being devoted to war, should be devoted to helping people who are suffering.

You've got earthquakes and natural disasters all over the world, but the people in the United States have been in the same position as people in other countries.

The natural disasters here [also] brought little positive reaction - look at [Hurricane] Katrina.

The people in this country, the poor people especially and the people of colour especially, have been as much victims of American power as people in other countries.

Q: Can you give us an overall scope of everything we talked about - the power and influence of the United States?

HZ: The power and influence of the United States has declined rapidly since the war in Iraq because American power, as it has been exercised in the world historically, has been exposed more to the rest of the world in this situation and in other situations.

So the US influence is declining, its power is declining.

However strong a military machine it is, power does not ultimately depend on a military machine. So power is declining.

Ultimately power rests on the moral legitimacy of a system and the United States has been losing moral legitimacy

My hope is that the American people will rouse themselves and change this situation, for the benefit of themselves and for the benefit of the rest of the world..